A New Beginning
by Lady Fyo
Summary: The Doctor gets a call from Dr. Grace Holloway, and this time she needs his help. A Time Lady has turned up, and so have a new batch of problems.
1. Chapter One- Grace Holloway

When the phone rings at two o'clock in the morning, it's rarely good.

Doctor Grace Holloway woke up to her bedside phone ringing, which seemed a lot louder now than it did during the day. She grabbed the phone.

"Hello?" She answered sleepily, already worrying about what could have happened to her family.

"Dr. Holloway, we need you to come in." It was Dr. Grey from the hospital. "Car hit a girl. EMT just brought her in. She's in A-fib."

"Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can," Grace replied, scrambling out of bed and into her scrubs and sneakers. The past two days had been relatively peaceful. Of course it couldn't last.

-

Grace soon was running into the prep room for the ER. Dr. Grey was waiting for her.

"Just got these from radiology. They're weird," he said, handing her the x-rays. Grace put them up on the light board.

"That's not possible." She stared at the films. "Two hearts."

"I think it's a double exposure. We took several, all like this. She's got six cracked ribs, a broken foot, and a broken wrist," Dr. Grey replied. "And her heart was going crazy. We have her hooked up to the monitor, and it's slowed down considerably."

"How so?" Grace was already forming an idea, one that would get her laughed out of the hospital.

"About ten per minute."

"Ten? Oh my God. Where is she?"

"Bed three-" Dr. Grey began, but Grace was already gone.

-

The patient was a blonde teenage girl, bruised badly and scaring the nurses with her low heart rate. Grace put her stethoscope on the girl's chest and listened. Something didn't sound right.

A scene flashed through her head- a man, holding her hand and gently laying it on his chest over his heart... and then moving it to the other side, where another heart beat. His skin had been cold- just like the girl's was now. Grace moved the stethoscope over to the other side, half wondering and half knowing. Another heart beat replied. Two hearts.

"Are we going to go in?" Asked one of the nurses.

"No. We just need to treat her for the broken bones. Don't let them touch her- heart," Grace said. "I'll stay with her and monitor her heart." She could barely contain her excitement. She'd found another one.

-

That morning was long and uncomfortable, spent in the bedside chair watching the girl's hearts readout on the EKG machine.

"Did the driver stop?" Grace asked.

The nurse on hand, Josh, nodded. "He called the EMT. Nice guy, really worried about her." Josh went back to writing in the paper work. "We didn't find any identification. No clue who she is. Hey, she's waking up."

The girl was just stirring, moaning.

"Take it easy, sweetheart," Josh said, gently. The girl was in traction and the last thing they wanted was for her to freak out.

"Doctor..."

"I'm here," Grace said, holding her hand.

"Doctor... I have to find the Doctor..."

Grace stared at her- a girl with two hearts, rambling about the Doctor. What the girl said next took Grace even farther aback.

"Dad..."


	2. Chapter Two- The TARDIS

"The phone's ringing!" Rory shouted. No one heard him over the Muse song blasting from the stereo. The Doctor was under the console, tinkering with something. Amy had been playing a game with Rory, and the Doctor's favorite Muse album,_ Black Holes & Revelations_ had been playing in the background. They'd just left Barcelona, where the Doctor had been adopted by a dog with no nose and Rory designated as the pooper scooper.

"Does nobody-" Rory grabbed the phone. "Hello? No, this is Rory Pond- I mean, Williams. No, I'm a nurse. What? I'm not in hospital at work right now. Which doctor do you want- THE Doctor? Wait, you said your name was Grace? Hold on." Rory turned off the music and looked down at the Doctor's bandy legs sticking out from under the console. "It's for you," he said.

The Doctor slid out from his work, wearing his ridiculous work goggles. "Where'd the music go?" He asked.

"Rory turned it off so he could hear the phone," Amy said, gathering up the cards from their game of Cluedo.

"Well then, Rory, talk to whoever it is. Be our charming Rory," The Doctor said with a smile.

"She doesn't want to talk to me, she wants to talk to you." Rory handed the Doctor the phone.

"Hello?" The Doctor fiddled with the cord. "Yes this is- Grace! Doctor! Yes! It's been so long! Yes, too long! Oh yes, I've been traveling. Got some new friends with me, so I'm not alone. No, no, good. Good! So glad to hear that. What's going on, then?" The Doctor's face fell and drained of color. "That's not possible, Grace. There's just me left" He was quiet for a moment. "There was a war, after I met you. Gallifrey... the Time Lords... gone. Just two- the Master and I. Yes, him. He survived. No longer, though. Gone too."

Amy and Rory stared at each other, straining to follow the one-sided conversation. "Gallifrey?" Rory mouthed. Amy shrugged.

"No, that'd be fine! We'd love to. Be there in an hour." The Doctor seemed to be getting worried and excited at the same time. "Thank you for calling me, Grace. It's good to hear from you again. Thank you, Doctor."

"What was that about?" Rory asked as the Doctor hung the phone up and turned to face his friends.

"Oh, that? We're going to California! The Bay City! Home of the crookedest street in the world, that lovely show about the detective with all the phobias..." the Doctor was off, throwing switches and punching buttons on the console.

"So, who's Grace?" Amy asked, sliding up to the Doctor, blocking his work.

"An old friend of mine. You'll love her. Ginger, too. I wish I were ginger. She's a Doctor in San Francisco, and she has a very interesting case for us." The Doctor tried to edge Amy away, but the Scott wouldn't move.

"So a lady friend."

"Yes, a lady who was a friend."

"What I think Amy is saying is she didn't know about any other lady friends you've had in the past," Rory offered.

"Or future," Amy added.

"Especially when you consider that... Well, River is..." Rory began. Everyone in the TARDIS fell silent. For a second, the TARDIS herself seemed to go silent at the mention of her mistress. River, a slightly psychopathic time traveler, was the Doctor's wife and the daughter of Amy and Rory.

"On yes, I've had a lot of lady friends. I don't get on with queens very well, though. I've had lady friends, um  
... gentlemen friends, I-don't-really-know-what friends. I knew a giant head once." The Doctor was rambling again. "Anyway, Grace and I met quite by accident..." as he spoke, he threw the lever to send them through the time vortex.

The TARDIS shook, sparks flying everywhere. The three travelers were jerked around, Rory losing his grip on the railing.

"I thought you repaired that mechanism thingy!" Amy shouted over the rumble of a very upset TARDIS.

"I did!" The Doctor replied, gripping the console and frantically attacking every switch he could reach. "It looks like the toaster just gave up!"

Rory steadied himself with the coat rack. "Somehow I don't think the toaster is all that important," he said.

"Oh Rory, practical as ever. Never underestimate the importance of a good toaster." As the Doctor spoke, the TARDIS settled down.

"I think we're in San Francisco," Amy called, peering out the door.

The Doctor turned to the scanner, which was showing an Indian head test pattern. "Sure?"

"It has the Golden Gate Bridge," Amy replied. "C'mon, let's go find Dr. Grace."


	3. Chapter Three- Totally Not Blood

"We're here to see Dr. Grace Holloway," the Doctor said, once he got the attention of one of the nurses at the station. The nurse was staring at the three as if she'd never seen an odder group. Behind the Doctor were Amy and Rory, Roy looking confused and worried and Amy looking excited to be on another adventure.

"She's on duty today. I'll send a message," the nurse said.

"It's very important that I speak to her, ma'am, the Doctor said, adjusting his bowtie. "Tell her that Dr. Bowman's here to see her."

The nurse sighed and picked up the phone. "Dr. Holloway to the nurses' station. Dr. Holloway. A Dr. Bowman is here to see you." She turned back to the three. "She'll be down soon."

"Thank you, Carol!" The Doctor said, reading her nametag. "Come along, Ponds, I see some magazines." They sat down in one of the nearby waiting rooms. Amy chose a travel magazine, Rory an outdated issue of Time, and the Doctor found an issue of Highlights for Children.

"So... Dr. Bowman." Amy didn't look up from the article about Michigan, land of enchantment.

"Grace had to introduce me to someone once, so she called me Dr. Bowman. She'll remember. Easier than saying the Doctor was looking for her when you're in a hospital."

"How did you meet Grace?" Rory asked.

"Yeah, Doctor," said Amy, peering over the magazine. "You haven't explained that."

"New Year's, 1999. I was having some trouble with the TARDIS, and it landed here. I met Grace, and she helped me track down the Master. Then we went our separate ways."

"Who's the Master?" Rory asked.

Another Time Lord..." the Doctor replied. He glanced away, just in time to see a red haired woman going up to the nurses' station. The Doctor jumped up and ran to her.

"Doctor!"

The woman turned around and stared at him. "...Doctor?" She asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Puccini," he whispered.

"It is you!" They hugged, old friends reunited. The Doctor looked up and gestured for Amy and Rory to come over to them.

"Amy, Rory, I'd like to introduce you to my friend Dr. Grace Holloway. She's a cardiologist and the doctor who saved me."

"Oh, I didn't save you," Grace replied, the Doctor's arm still around her shoulders. "You can let me go now, Doctor."

"Oh yes." The Doctor let her go. "She did save me. She held back death that day. Grace, these are my friends the Ponds, Amy and Rory. Amy's a travel writer and Rory's a nurse."

Grace shook their hands. "A nurse, Mr. Pond? What do you work in?"

"Just an RN, Doctor," Rory replied. "Comes in handy, though, running with the Doctor."

"I can imagine it would!" Grace said with a laugh. "It's not exactly safe."

"He keeps us on our toes, the Doctor," Amy said.

"Are you too married?"

"Yeah, the Doctor's our chaperone," Amy said with a grin. "Takes us to all the best places for dates."

"Don't go dragging up last week's incident with the Zygons," the Doctor said. "So Grace, what was it you needed my help with?"

"Come with me. I have the x-rays in my office."

-

"The hospital's redecorated," the Doctor observed. "I don't like it."

"It's not the same hospital," Grace said. "I quit, remember? Someone gave this hospital a favorable reference for me, and they asked me to start working for them."

"Are you happy here?" The Doctor asked as they walked into the office with an important-looking sign on the door that said "Dr. Grace Holloway, Cardiology."

"I am. Better boss. They wanted me to do admin work, but I refused." Grace sat down at her desk, telling the three companions to make themselves at home. "I have the medical charts and x-rays here," she said, handing the Doctor an envelope. "See what you make of them."

The Doctor opened the files. "Two hearts, slow heartbeat, low body temperature, self-confidence coma, wakes up, then falls asleep," Grace said, rummaging around in a drawer. "And I had hematology look at a sample of her blood. This is what I got." She placed a vial on her desk.

"Let me see that," Rory said. Amy passed him the vial.

"This isn't blood," Rory said. "I do venepuncture every day- this is totally not blood."

"It is," Grace said, looking over at the Doctor. "I've seen it before. I took a sample of his blood once. I didn't think it was blood either."

"So you have a girl with two hearts, weird blood, and she keeps passing out?" Amy asked. "What is she?"

"Time Lady."

They all turned to look at the Doctor, who had been silent all through the blood argument. He had been staring at the x-rays, seemingly in a trance.

"A Time Lady? A female you?" Amy seemed shocked.

"It's Gallifreyan physiology," the Doctor said. "But it's impossible. There are no Time Lords left. Just me. That were all destroyed in the Time War against the Daleks."

"You said the Master survived too," Grace said.

"He was trapped as a human with the Chameleon Arch, then reverted to Time Lord. He was lost though, sent into the Void."

Rory blinked. This was news to him. Amy took it in stride.

"So in this big universe there is no chance that there's another Time Lord off somewhere."

"Apparently there is, Doctor," Grace said.

The Doctor stared blankly at the da Vinci print across the room, a thousand years of life and death running through his head.


	4. Chapter Four- The Empty Child

Fish.

War.

Dad.

The girl had woken up again, and was now staring up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of everything. She wasn't making much sense to even herself- how could that ginger surgeon be expected to understand her?

Humans were all the same.

She wished that there was someone with her. She remembered a man holding her, looking down at her with the greatest mixture of sadness mingled with tenderness she'd ever seen in her short life. Brown eyes and messy hair, telling her to be careful, to not kill anyone.

The doctor taking care of her was nice. She held her hand, promising that they'd find her dad.

She'd never find her father. The kind doctor would never find him. Dad was gone, thinking she was the one lost. The man, promising her they'd travel the universe, together, they had a lot to do. Now it wasn't going to happen.

The girl had lived through wars and revolutions, saved planets, and fought and befriended aliens. She'd done a lot of running, and now she was going to die in hospital in San Francisco.

The nurse had left her to sleep.

Then a strange sensation overcame the girl. She sat up, brain working faster than it ever had. She had to get out of this pathetic human hospital. They'd kill her. She'd heard the doctor talking to herself about two hearts. She must know something about Gallifreyans. But how much could a human, with their little minds and limited experiences know about the life of a Time Lady?

The girl dragged herself out of the bed, landing on the cold linoleum. Her foot and wrist screamed in pain. Disoriented, she stared up at the dimmed fluorescent lights. They seemed far too bright now. The girl dragged her hand over her face. She backed up in horror when she saw her hand. Gold light shimmered like a spirit around her hand, and then down her arm and other hand. She sat there, gaping at her hands. It was starting.

She jumped up, slamming into the wall to steady herself. "No- No! Not now! Not here! Please! Dad won't know me!"

The girl was covered in light, seemingly catching fire.

"No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!"

Bones crunched into place, healing the broken ribs and foot, her wrist already healed. Hair grew. Facial features rearranged. She collapsed on her knees, gasping for breath.

"Huh? Wha- Wait, I'm alive?" The girl stumbled to the room's toilet, finding the light and staring at a new face. "Oh God, I'm ginger."


	5. Chapter Five- A Time Lady Discovered

Her clothes were folded in a drawer, and she tried them on. The army green and black were what she had been used to, but she didn't particularly like them. If she had a new body and mind, she might as well find something that fit her. She had another life to live, and a father to find.

"Okay. These won't do. Nope." The clothes were ripped up and bloodstained, and if she wore then, she'd just get dragged back into human custody. She also found her wallet, which had some cash and a scrap of psychic paper. Good thing her mind had been blank at the time, otherwise all sorts of weird things could have been projected to the humans. Once she had had a fever at Alpha Centuri and unconsciously informed everyone that she was an expert on eye surgery. That had been a long night.

She noticed the Doctor had left her labcoat in the room. She put it on and went back to the mirror in the toilet and looked herself over critically.

"Wow, Jenny, you look just like that doc," she said, running her tongue over her teeth, which were still the same. She looked at herself, shocked at what she had just said. "Jenny?" Flashes of memories- her dad. A ginger, her dad's best friend. And her name. Jenny. The soldiers didn't have names, but her dad's friend named her Jenny.

Jenny straightened the labcoat, deciding she liked it. She'd need some new clothes, though. She took one last glance around the hospital room, then headed out the door.

She found a locker room for the staff. She looked through the lockers, finding shirts and trousers but nothing stood out. Finally she saw it- black jacket and trousers, and a shirt that looked to be made of patches. Perfect. Jenny got dressed, shoving her old clothes in a footlocker, keeping the labcoat.

She was just walking out of the changing room when she heard someone yell "She's gone!"


	6. Chapter Six- A Chance Encounter

Grace had just stepped out of her office when the nurse in charge of the girl, Josh, came running up, panicking.

"She's gone," he sputtered. "The car accident. She's gone. She can't have moved on her own!"

"Not again." Grace looked over at the Doctor. "You people can't give me a break, can you?"

"What just happened?" asked Rory.

"We've lost a patient. The girl." Grace took off down the hall, the Doctor and the Ponds following.

-

Jenny slipped down the hall, avoiding personnel and pretending she belonged at the hospital in a doctor's clothes. After all, the Doctor was her father, and she had a weird feeling that the human doctor was on her side. Jenny decided that, when they weren't about to kill her, doctors were alright. She turned the corner out of the office halls and stopped- the redhead doctor was coming down the hall, shouting at a man in a tweedy suit and... was that a bowtie? He looked like a complete dork.

"Great. Just great." Jenny pressed on, passing them. Behind the doctor and the man there was another ginger and a scruffy-looking man. Jenny ran into the man. "Sorry!" she apologized.

"That's okay, miss," Rory said.

Jenny couldn't help but notice that the man had a British accent. Dad had a British accent too, even though he was Gallifreyan. So had his friends, Donna and Martha. Jenny got a sick feeling in her stomach as she walked down the hallway, trying to decide where to go. She missed her father, the Doctor. She felt like she was so far from home now, but of course she didn't have a home.

"What do you think, Doctor? Do you think she... Well... regenerated?"

Jenny whipped around. The doctor that had been treating her was talking to the dorky man in the bowtie. And she had just mentioned regeneration, something that should be totally unknown to humans.

"If she managed to escape, then she had to of regenerated, since she was too badly injured," he replied.

"Great. So now we may not know who she is now. I thought I was through this," the doctor was saying.

Jenny began to panic. The humans knew something about her. And some idiot would stick needles in her and destroy her alien physiology with their primitive medical care. Or she'd be sent to some government facility in Pahrump, Nevada, to be kept out of way of the humans. It'd be best if she left as soon as possible.

Jenny just didn't count on the earthquake.


	7. Chapter Seven- She's Gone

"Grace! Graaaaace!" The Doctor was banging on the door, screaming for his doctor.

"Doctor, calm down, we'll find it." Amy ran up beside him, Rory following.

"Is this our fault?" Rory asked. "We did land while we were having engine trouble." He was hauling three bags full of supplies he'd fought a five hour line for at the local Rite Aid for.

"No, it's the San Andreas fault. It's a completely normal seismic event caused by the shifting and colliding continental plates. California happens to nearly be on a plate of its own, the Juan de Fuca Plate, next to the North American Plate. GRAAACE!" The Doctor went back to pounding the door.

The door flew open and the three jumped back. Grace was in her scrubs and was on her way to the hospital. "What's going on, Doctor?"

"She's gone! The TARDIS is gone!"

"We went back to where we landed yesterday morning and it was gone," Amy explained.

"We spent the night in a motel, and then this happens," Rory added. "I've spent the whole day bandaging up the others that were staying there."

"We need some extra nurses. Come with me. Doctor, stop blubbering and get in the car. Amy, Rory, you too," Grace said. "I've got a lot of work to do, might as well tell me everything on the way."

The Doctor obeyed, getting in the backseat. Amy took Rory' s bag and joined him in the back.

"Don't you want to sit up with Grace?" Rory asked.

"No, I like it back here. So much more fun. Get in, Rory, you deserve shotgun today," the Doctor replied.

It had been a day since the Doctor and his friends had landed in San Francisco, and things had gone from bad to worse. First, the girl Grace had brought to the Doctor's attention had gone missing. There had been a warning shudder that no one paid attention to. Then the Doctor, Amy, and Rory had returned to where they had parked the TARDIS, only to find that was gone too. While the Doctor had been frantically trying to locate the lost police box, Rory had the good sense to check them into a motel. That night, there had been an earthquake.

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory filled Grace in on what had happened since parting ways at the hospital. Grace was on call, having surgery to preform that day anyway, plus deal with several heart attacks.

"No news on the girl?" Grace asked. They were stuck in traffic- a whole block had been torn up.

"Nope," Amy said. "The Doctor said that all the other Time Lords are dead."

"What happened?" Grace asked, looking at the Doctor in the rearview mirror.

"There was a war," the Doctor said. "A Time War. The Time Lords against the Daleks. And both Skaro and Gallifrey were destroyed."

"You said the Master survived," Grace replied. "I thought he got sucked through the Eye of Harmony."

"It was all wibbly-wobbly. The Master took over, as a man named Harold Saxon. Long story. I'll explain later. There aren't any Time Lords left."

"Can we deal with what's going on now?" Rory asked. "We have a missing TARDIS and an earthquake."

"Dear God. I've got surgery in an hour. We're not going to get out of this mess soon enough." Grace put her head on the steering wheel, her life and career flashing before her eyes.

"I'll see if there's a way out," Rory offered.

"We're three blocks from the hospital but still, good idea. I'll walk to the hospital. I can't wait for the city to take care of this mess," Grace said.

"If we find a way out, we'll just bring the car," Amy said.

Rory got out of the car and walked down the street. Grace got out to find better cell reception, needing to call Dr. Grey to see if he could take over the operating room. Amy and the Doctor stayed in the car, listening to the news.

Rory continued down the street, avoiding cracks in the pavement. He was about to ask a road worker if there was a detour when a girl walked up to him.

"Are you trying to get through?" The girl asked. Rory did a double take. She was tall, red haired, and dressed in a lab coat.

"Um, yeah," Rory began. "Didn't I see you at the hospital?"

"No," Jenny said. "I try to stay away from those places."

"Okay then," Rory said, site his life couldn't get any weirder. "What were you going to tell me?"

"Go left. Should be able to get out," Jenny said simply. "Good luck." She turned and walked away.

"Thanks- hey, wait!" Rory called after her, but she was gone.

That's when Rory heard moaning.


	8. Chapter Eight- The Centurian's Patient

Rory had just texted Amy to tell the others that he'd found a way through (after checking he found the street left indeed would get them out) when he heard moaning from behind him. Rory turned around. A slab of sidewalk had been upturned, leaving a hole by the street. The moan was coming from that hole.

Rory knelt down, picking up a stick and prodding opening. Something that sounded like an "ouch" replied and he began digging at the rubble. Someone was buried, and it was his duty to take care of the victim.

"It's okay, I'm here to help," Rory said, reaching in the hole and feeling a rough hand grasp his. "You're going to be okay. I'm a nurse and I know a doctor-"

The child that he hauled out made Rory' s head go cold.

"No, that's not- oh, I give up. Seems anything is possible today."

-

"What's that?"

"My mobile. Rory's texting me."

Amy was sitting in the backseat, watching the Doctor fiddle with the car stereo.

"Grace is going to kill you."

"Funny you should say that. Are you going to answer Rory?" The Doctor asked, scanning the radio with his screwdriver.

Amy looked at the phone. "He says he's found a way through and-"

"And what?"

"Oh my God, Doctor."

-

It was just a child, but Rory started having horrible flashbacks to when he had died and then been effectively erased from the universe (it had been a rather bad day).

"Ummm... so, lizardkind. Hrm. What did the Doctor call you? Saurian? No... Silurian. That's it," Rory said. He lifted the child, looking it over for injuries. "Don't worry, I'm a nurse. We'll find your mummy." Rory worried about meeting up with mummy- Silurians were fiercely proud and territorial, and they didn't like humans, who they thought had taken the Earth when it really belonged to the now subterranean reptiles. It was all very confusing.

Rory, Amy, and the Doctor had gotten involved with them in Wales,when a mining operation had struck into the Silurians' city, which was waiting in stasis. A separate peace had been made between the humans and Silurians, but Ambrose, a human angry over the kidnapping of her husband and son, had killed one of the Silurians on the surface. It was agreed that the Silurians would go back to their sleep, to be woken up in several thousand years to join humans in peace. It was a great idea, but things went even more wrong when Rory had been sucked into the crack in the universe, deleting him.

Amy had forgotten him.

-

"Well, then tell him to bring it here, I'll see what we can do, the poor thing," said the Doctor.

"Sure. But I'm driving. And you're putting the radio back together before Grace sees it," Amy said.

"Oh, she won't mind," the Doctor said. "I can use this to pick up signals and try to locate the TARDIS. She has a satellite radio. Satellite radios are cool."

Amy groaned.

Rory soon walked up, carrying the little Silurian, wrapped up in his jacket. "I think it's a boy," Rory said. "I found him under some rubble." He looked at the disassembled radio and the Doctor, Who was building something that looked like a mutant camera. "They're cold blooded, right?" Rory started patching up the lizardlike child. Nurses didn't have to take the Hippocratic Oath, but Rory had always believed he should follow it, even when he had been a soldier. Even though the Silurians weren't allies of humans, he couldn't' just leave it.

"Yes, ectothermic," the Doctor said. "Keep him warm and happy. I wonder if Grace will mind."


	9. Chapter Nine- A Word on Silurians

Long story short, Grace did mind. Rory hauled his new patient into Grace' s office and the moment she got a hold of the Doctor, Grace started hollering at him.

"I forgot. You don't know about Silurians," the Doctor said.

"And you just bring one in here? We barely have the facilities at the moment to treat humans! We had a 3.2 last night, a missing patient with two hearts who magically ran away, a missing TARDIS, and now a lizard?"

"Homo reptilia," the Doctor said. "Millions of years before you humans took over, the Silurians were the dominant race. They went underground and have been sleeping but they want to return to the surface. They think that the planet is rightfully theirs and humans just... took it from them."

"But we scored a truce," Amy said.

"Not yet," the Doctor said. "It's 2012 now, and we'll find them in Wales in about ten years."

"Wales?"

"A mining expedition woke them up," the Doctor replied. "You humans, always think that there's nothing you can't use."

"Then did the earthquake bring this one up?" Grace sounded like she was trying to avoid her friend's habit of insulting humans.

"Yes. Now we have to find where their colony is," the Doctor said.

"Okay, you do that. I've got surgery."

-

Silurians are members of _Homo reptilia_ and are currently asleep under the Earth's surface. At one time, Silurians were the dominant race, and they believe that humans took control unfairly. In truth, Silurians and humans are not all that different. Silurians have green scales, horns reminiscent of ceratopsoians, and are cold blooded. Other than that, they walk upright, have a complex social system, and are basically scaly humans. After all, we are in the same genus.

-

Jenny hadn't come to San Francisco on holiday. She'd been tracking down a lone Vespiform when she was hit by the car. It had just occurred to her as she left hospital to look for her vortex manipulator.

Jenny had stolen a fighter after her first regeneration and and had begun her career of saving planets and doing a lot of running. She'd met up with Jack Harkness, who was now head of Torchwood Three in Cardiff. Harkness had known her father, and had helped her time travel, giving her a vortex manipulator and told her to say hello to her father if she found him.

Part of her didn't want to find her father. She didn't want to be bossed around, told to come home at a certain time, be careful, or anything. She loved being a vigilante like her father, never staying longer than needed to save the world. But then there was the part of her that wanted her daddy back. She wanted to do all the things he'd said they'd do. She wanted to belong to someone and something. It was lonely being the only one.

"Crap," Jenny muttered. It was hard to retrace her steps now in the day. Everything looked completely different, and besides that, the earthquake the next night made things even more complicated. She'd spent the night looking around with a torch she'd begged off a bum, then running for shelter. She'd stood in a doorway, sure she had just escaped one death and run into another. She spent the next day running.

"Stop right there!"

Jenny turned around, coming face to face with a green, scaly figure, pointing a strange gun at her. Jenny's mind worked frantically. She was a soldier, and and she didn't like being unarmed.

"What do you want?" Jenny demanded, looking her assailant over- green scales, face-fitting mask and horns. Even though she'd never met one, Jenny knew that this was a Silurian.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" The Silurian demanded back, still pointing the wide-barreled gun at Jenny.

"None of your business, scales," Jenny snapped. She made to press on, but the Silurian held her back with a growl and an arm.

"Humans are not allowed past this point," the Silurian had pulled out some strange device and scanned Jenny. "You're not human. That explains why you weren't scared," the guard observed. It took its mask off, revealing him to be a boy about Jenny's apparent age.

"I though all Silurians were underground," Jenny said.

"The earthquake woke a few of us up," the boy said. "You're a Time Lord. What are you doing here on the Juan de Fuca?"

"None of your- put that gun down. You don't know how to use it, do you?"

"I certainly do know how yo use it! I can kill you at any- oh, it's all an act, lady."

"What?"

"I'm not really a guard or anything. The earthquake did us more harm than good, actually, and we're pretty much caved in. A couple of us are on the surface now, and I had to look for them before the humans find us."  
"What?" Jenny stared at the reptile.

"Name's Thereon," he said. "Silurian geologist, second class."

"You're a scientist?"

"That's why I'm up here," Thereon replied. "Our colony wasn't prepared to wake yet. The last earthquake was no worse than the previous one, except something has upset the seismic action."

"Why are you telling me this?" Jenny asked.

"The scanner says you're a Time Lord. Is that true?"

The truth was a lot weirder than that, Jenny decided, but she nodded.

"Your kind are troublemakers. I suppose you had something to do with the shattering. Where's your TARDIS?" Thereon glared at her, and Jenny realized just how weird a Silurian's eyes were- humanoid but not totally unlike a lizard's. Rather unsettling.

"I don't have a TARDIS," Jenny said. "And I had nothing to do with the earthquake. I was in human hospital, then I got out and was looking for a way out of here when the earthquake hit." Jenny pouted. "I didn't touch anything."

"So who are you then?" Thereon asked.

"Name's Jenny."

"Nice to meet you, Jenny." Thereon said. "Looks like we're both stuck."

"Yeah," Jenny said. "How many Silurians are on the surface?"

"Five, we think. Some might have been killed in the quake."

"Well, good luck finding them, I have a Vespiform to exterminate. Hate bugs. See ya, if you don't need me."

"Alright," Thereon said, watching Jenny walk away. He hadn't had the heart to tell her that one of the Silurians brought to the surface by the earthquake was his gene-brother. He turned back down the alleyway, back into the opening, where the artifact stood, a strange and useless blue box.


	10. Chapter Ten- Shoes are Cool

There was a lull in the action in the hospital. Grace was finally off, having taken care of all the heart trouble within a fifty mile radius of San Francisco. Rory had patched up the Silurian and helped the other nurse's make the rounds. Amy and the Doctor had been using the computer in Grace's office to locatey the epicenter, which the Doctor explained would help them find the opening from where the Silurian had come.

"In the meanwhile, what do we do with the Silurian?" Amy asked, tilting her head in the intruder's direction.

"We'll figure something out. Where is Rory? I thought he went to get coffee," the Doctor said, getting up from the desk.

"He probably needed to help someone," Amy said. "Hey, you go find Rory, I'll keep going through the reports."

"Alright," the Doctor replied, stepping out the door of the office.

"And bring me some crisps!"

-

"Look, Dr. Skinner, I don't know what happened. I wasn't the one on duty, and I wasn't in charge of her." Grace had several horrible thoughts running through her head, raasnging from "It's happened again" to "I'm dead" to a very strong desire to strangle her colleague.

"Then why where you involved?" Skinner asked. Grace could tell he was deliberately keeping his voice level.

"Personal interest sir, merely personal. She was brought to my attention because she had an irregular heartbeat, and once that calmed down, I just checked in on her. She-" Grace stopped herself, not sure what she had been about to say.

"What about her?"

"She asked for the doctor, sir," Grace said. "And then she wanted her father."

Skinner looked sympathetic. "I seriously hope that's she's found safe. She's probably mentally unstable."

"I think we may find her soon," said the Doctor.

Grace whipped around, surprised to see the Doctor next to her, smiling and holding what looked like a wallet.

"Dr. John Bowman, Scotland Yard. Well, not right now, I'm visiting Grace. Although Scotland Yard sounds more impressive than 'annoying houseguest.' Unless you're in with criminals. Then it's not really considered cool."

"A detective?" Skinner looked from the giraffe in the bowtie to Grace.

"As I said, here visiting Grace. She told me about the patient, awful business, I believe I can help. Just have a look round," the Doctor said.

"Dr. Skinner, I was just going to go over to general," Grace said. "I'll take Dr. Bowman with me."

"No problem. I still want to talk to you about the patient, though."

"No problem, we'll get back to you as soon as we've done a little detective work," the Doctor said, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Grace here is just like Miss Marple!"

Grace smacked her forehead as they walked outdoors. "What is it with you?" She demanded. "You get away with everything, you're so charming." She looked at the wallet the Doctor was just about to put back in his inside pocket. "What is that?"

"Slightly psychic paper," he replied, handing the wallet to her.

"It's blank," Grace said flatly. "No, it says something now. It says your name is John Smith and you're a from the County records office."

"It shows people what you want them to think," the Doctor explained.

"You charmer. We could have used that back with the beryllium clock," Grace said. "Instead all we had was a bag of jelly babies and we made it up as we went along."

"Don't forget the shoes!" The Doctor said, laughing. "Remember the shoes?"

"Of course I remember!" Grace laughed as she followed him down the sidewalk.

"I still have them! They don't fit me now, but I hope someday they will." The Doctor looked so happy, so much like her Doctor, Grace realized.

"So apparently bowties fit you now. New body, New style, huh?"

"Bowties are cool," the Doctor replied.

"I thought cravats were plenty cool," Grace countered.

She'd held back her initial surprise at his new face. He wasn't the sweet, soft-spoken, confused puppy that followed her home. He was more awkward, but just as childlike. She saw something in him, though- he looked a lot younger, but he seemed a lot older.

They walked into the other building on the hospital campus. "I just have some films to pick up, What then back to the office. What You better know what you're doing, What I can't spend a week trying to locate a dormant race of lizard people. What are you here for? I thought you and Amy were working on the geologic maps," Grace said.

"Amy sent me to find Rory," the Doctor said, stopping abruptly in front of a waiting room. "And I think we just found him."

Rory was sprawled out on a chair, asleep. He was dressed in scrubs and had a temporary identification card pinned to his shirt. He had volunteered to help with the people brought in after the earthquake, and the hospital didn't mind his presence. Rory had been working overtime and now was completely exhausted. It was supposed to have been his holiday off work.

"Good old Rory," the Doctor said. "The loyal centurian."

"Let him sleep," Grace said. "Let's get some coffee. We have a lot to talk about, Doctor."


	11. Chapter Eleven- Jenny Does Some Research

"Sorry to keep you waiting, ma'am," said Gareth, setting his briefcase down on the desk. "It's been so busy here with the earthquake."

"I can imagine," Jenny said.

"What did you say your name was again?" Gareth asked.

"Jennifer Noble. I'm from the Royal Geological Society," Jenny said, showing Gareth her psychic paper identification. "I understand that you've located the epicenter."

"Yes. It was located under Divirsado Street," Gareth replied.

"Thank you sir, that's all I needed to know." Jenny got up from the desk and and left Gareth's office. She broke into a run once out the door of the building, not wanting to be around when someone decided to Google her and then find out she really didn't work for the RGS.

Jenny didn't know it, but it had been her father who had indirectly gotten Gareth the position he now held, all by tipping the then student off on which question to answer on his midterms.

Jenny looked her free tourist's map of San Francisco over again, finally locating Divirsado Street, which ran north-south roughly on a crease of the map, crossing the Golden Gate Avenue. There Jenny had circled her best guess on the epicenter. If she could find the source of the earthquake, it would explain the Silurians and possibly she'd be able to convince any who might not want to stay down there that it wasn't all that a good idea to try to hang out in Haight Ashbury.

Jenny stopped at a Starbucks, splurging on a coffee and tart, which was the first food she'd had in a couple of days. Time Lord metabolism allowed them to go on for days without much nutrition or rest, but Jenny was getting pretty hungry. Besides, they had a banana tart that had her name in Gallifreyan written all over it.

Jenny munched on her snack while reading the San Francisco Chronicle. The earthquake had been felt across the Bay. Fortunately, fewer deaths than Jenny expected had occurred. Jenny grinned. Gareth was a genius that had made great advances in the field of seismology, and thanks to him, San Francisco would survive much worse than this. Jenny tried wrapping her head around worse. She wasn't used to the earth moving under her feet, and her own mind exaggerated things.

Jenny had decided that wherever the quake began, she'd start looking for the opening into the Silurian colony. That was the most likely place, seeing as the Pacific Northwest was an incredibly volatile region, and this was the first time Jenny had heard of something strong enough to wake Silurians, a race sleeping for millions of years. The earthquake had measured 7.9 on the Richter scale, as compared to the Great Earthquake of 1906, was a 7.8 and had resulted in over 3000 casualties. The epicenter, or the starting point of the quake, had to be near enough to the colony to wake up the residents. Since 1906, architecture had evolved. With modern retrofitting, an earthquake that could cause a thousand casualties was barely anything. 5 pointers rarely made the news. Things had advanced, leaving behind familiar terms. Now earthquakes were measured in moment magnitude, not the Richter scale.

Jenny had a lot to learn about this world if she was going to defend it.

Finishing her coffee, she cleaned up her table and tucked her map and newspaper under her arm. Jenny decided to go back the way she had been earlier that morning, when she'd run into first the man from the hospital and then the Silurian, Thereon. She had some important matters to discuss with the scaly geologist.


	12. Chapter Twelve- The Song of the TARDIS

She was humming. Singing. Something about waking up on the other side. She was calling to her Doctor, but he didn't hear her. He was lost without her, lost in San Francisco yet again. The only one there was the Silurian geologist, Thereon. He heard the song perfectly in his language, and had been standing in front of the artifact for the past hour.

He heard other things too. It seemed to be calling out, shouting random things in the hopes that someone would know.

"The Bad Wolf, remember her?"

"How about Prisoner Zero?"

"Where are you? My Doctor, where are you?"

"She held back death and I gave her part of myself. She must be able to lead you here."

Thereon had long given up trying to understand these ramblings, and instead was measuring the radioactive activity. Its levels were normal, although it was giving off hundreds of joules. The blue box had to be alive. It had landed in this old building on Divisado Street, directly above the epicenter, just before the quake. Thereon believed it had something to do with the shock itself. Maybe it had caused it.

Thereon gave up. He crawled back down the tunnel to the colony, where one of the woken elders was waiting for his report.

"It seems to be alive, sir," Thereon said.

"Is it the cause of the quake?"

Thereon barely stopped himself from shrinking away in fear at the sight of his leader's severe face.

"Quite possibly, your Excellency," Thereon said, bowing. "I will prevent any aftershock. After I have made sure the artifact is safe, then I will bring it down to the colony and we will store it. It seems to be of human construction, from what I know of their kind."

He said nothing of its singing.


	13. 13- If Our Hearts Were Never Broken

"Grace? Can I come in?"

"No. Go away. I have work to do."

"But I really want to talk to you, Grace."

"Go away. ...The Silurian's asleep."

"I won't wake him," the Doctor said. He pushed open the door. Grace was at her desk, buried in paperwork. Puccini was playing on her computer.

"Amy and I found the epicenter. You know, where the earthquake began. It's right where Rory found our patient. We should be able to return the little fellow to his kind. We need the find how many were woken up and make sure they don't try to take over like they usually do. Rory went to investigate, Amy's tracking him via RoryCam."

"Do you ever shut up?" Grace asked.

The Doctor was about to reply, but noticed that Grace had been crying.

"Are you alright?"

"Me? Yeah, fine, just a little tired.

The Doctor stepped over to her. "We've barely talked since the quake! Here I thought I'd catch up with an old friend." He pulled a chair over and sat down. "How have you been doing since I saw you?"

"Well, I suppose," Grace replied. "Moved to this hospital. Seems someone gave me a favorable reference, no mention of the missing man with two hearts."

The truth was a little more complicated than that. Grace had gone back to being a surgeon, but had felt just as lonely as she had before the Doctor. Brian hadn't come back, and moreover she didn't want him back. She now understood that she couldn't have a boyfriend and be on call. Several men had tried to date her, but she'd somehow driven each away. Maybe it was for the best. The only man she had any affection for had been the Doctor, and he had left.

She'd fought idiot administrators and politicians, kept her position even after being offered cushy jobs on boards and the like. She kept working on hearts, trying to live up to the Doctor's promise that she would do great things. She knew who she was, that was enough. Some days she wanted him back, though. What good was knowing yourself if you had no friends. She'd lived a normal life, but she was always hoping, in the back of her mind, that a blue box would fall out of the sky.

Grace had been able to hold back death, at least for the extent of human life, many times. She'd returned to her job, encouraged by the Doctor, and wasn't as tired of life as she had been before. She wasn't scared of death either, but it was still her duty to fight it as much as possible. As always, a few died after surgery. But in ten years, she hadn't killed anyone. And she hadn't lost any patients lately in such a spectacular fashion as regeneration and plain running off.

She'd sorted as much about Time Lord physiology as she could without a test subject. She'd saved the blood sample she'd taken all those years ago, and had kept sketching what she knew of the cardiac system of a Time Lord. She was still angry at her former boss for destroying the evidence.

She was proud of herself. She'd been doing what the Doctor said she would do- great things. But still part of her felt empty, something she hadn't noticed until the Doctor came back.

Soon Grace was telling the Doctor all this, pacing around the office.

"And I thought I was doing good!" She cried. "Then this girl gets brought in. Double exposure my butt. Time Lord. I call you, then she goes missing. She's obviously regenerated and God knows what she looks like now!"

"Grace..."

"Then an earthquake. Lizard people from the dawn of time. What next?"

"It could get worse. There could be daleks. Or cybermen. Or vampires. Or angry queens. Seem to have a lot of those lately."

Grace slouched down on the couch, holding her head in her hands. The Doctor sat down next to her, feeling a bit awkward, like when he was with River.

Finally Grace dragged up her courage. "I missed you, Doctor."

_Miss me?_ The Doctor thought. Usually people didn't miss him. Sometimes they died. Other times they forgot. Most often they left, ready to lead their own lives. But then again, Grace had been the one to ask him to come with her. He put an arm around her, still feeling a bit awkward. He used to not be that awkward around her. "I missed you too," he whispered.

Grace closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning her forehead on his shoulder. "I lost another one like you. How could I have been so stupid."

"You're not stupid, not in the least," the Doctor reassured her. "We'll find her."

"Who is she?" Grace asked.

"I don't know. All of them were lost in the Time War. I'm afraid my friend Romana died. I hoped it could have been her, but she's probably gone too." He swallowed the pain in his throat.

"How many times have you regenerated since I saw you?" Grace asked.

"Three," the Doctor replied quietly. He then began telling her his side of the story- about the Time War, and his regeneration. He'd started his eighth life with joy and love and by the end was left with anger and loss. His ninth life was spent in angst, until he met a girl- a bright, brave nineteen-year-old sales clerk named Rose Tyler. He'd grabbed her hand, told her to run, and that had changed everything. He could never find the words, but he loved Rose. Then came the Time War against the Emperor of the Daleks, a false god destroyed by the Bad Wolf. The power of the TARDIS inside Rose made her the Bad Wolf, with the power to end the Time War, but it would have killed her. Unable to let his love die, he sacrificed himself for her and regenerated.

The Doctor told Grace about being forced to lock Rose in a parallel universe. Then about the loudmouth runaway bride. Soon he recounted travels with future doctor Martha Jones, a steadfast genius he didn't appreciate. The bossy ginger Donna, whose wedding the Doctor had ruined, returned, this time to stay. They'd become best friends. And she had shone brightly- at the cost of her memories.

It hurt too much.

He sped through his description of the confusing return of the Time Lords and Gallifrey, and Grace shuddered at the mere mention of their old enemy the Master.

"And you offered him mercy again?" She said.

"I did. I think he finally took it, in the end."

Grace was sitting head in her hand, elbow propped on the wood armrest of the couch. "So you did die when he knocked four times."

"It wasn't who I expected," he admitted. He then filled her in on landing in a little girl's garden and promising her he would return... and when he did, she had grown up, been through four therapists, and given up on the Raggedy Doctor. Then came Prisoner Zero, and the moment the Doctor had to declare who he was. Grace grinned- When her Doctor remembered, he'd kissed her. The Doctor smiled shyly. He was getting worse with girls. He continued his story, telling about how they restarted the universe, and about the mysterious woman River Song. He didn't mention that River was his wife. Then all the adventures the three of them- himself, Amy, and Rory, and sometimes River, had been on- dinosaurs and daleks and his own death. Nixon and monsters they forgot as soon as they looked away. Silence fell and a good man went to war.

"Still holding back death, I see," Grace said. "I knew you were behind stopping those cubes. I was running like a madwoman around the hospital when they opened up. I'd never seen so many heart attacks at one time."

"Then we went to Barcelona, where they have these dogs with no noses!" The Doctor said. "You should see it, Grace. Beautiful planet and I love the puppies. Then we got your call."

"Thanks for coming," Grace said, hugging the Doctor. He hugged her back, understanding her loneliness.

"You came for me when I needed you," he remembered. He gulped, remembering that her loyalty to him had cost her her life. He'd lost so many friends since her. Rose and Jack. Martha and Donna. His daughter had been killed in war, Martha got married, and Sarah Jane was on her own, chasing aliens and raising a son. River was only there part of the time, and even then he didn't know what she was there for- made for a very awkward marriage.

"I'm proud of you, Grace," he said. "You chose to make your own way, and you haven't given up. You're not the woman I met back at New Year's."

"Yeah, well that woman died. Killed by the Master. But that wasn't me." Grace smiled. "I'm just really tired, I guess. Usually I'm not like this."

"I know you're not," the Doctor said, pressing a kiss on her forehead. "Get some rest."

As he walked out of the office, he glanced at Grace, lying on the couch, falling asleep. He then turned out the lights.


	14. Chapter Fourteen- Internal Memory

"What do you know about the artifact?"

"I don't know anything!"

Jenny was immediately regretting everything everything from coming to San Francisco to going back to where she had met Thereon. Maybe she shouldn't have been curious. Maybe she shouldn't have tried to take care of the Silurians herself. Maybe she should have paid better attention when Dad told her to be careful.

Those were a lot of maybes.

"You're a Time Lord."

"So what? I'm not from Gallifrey," Jenny choked. At the moment, she was strapped to an examination table, under the city of San Francisco. Great. Just great. She'd gone back to where she'd met Thereon, and in the process of looking around, fallen into a hole. She'd been captured by two Silurians and taken to this lab. The walls were constructed out of the ground, and all equipment was high tech in a primitive way. There was a faint organic smell, and a strange humming in the background. Jenny wanted nothing more than to be out of there.

A Silurian was standing over her with a syringe and wearing some form of surgical mask.

"What's that for?" Jenny asked, trying not to get nervous. She was a soldier, unarmed, and tied down.

"You probably have a million diseases on you, ape," the Silurian said. "I'm a doctor, I'm not going to kill you."

"If you're a Doctor, one, why am I strapped up and two, why are you questioning me about some artifact?" Jenny asked.

"Standard procedure. You have two hearts and a completely alien physiology. You're obviously a Time Lord. What are you doing on Earth, and more importantly, what are you doing in our colony? Were you involved in the shock that woke us up?"

"That was an earthquake, scaleboy, and I had nothing to do with it. I almost didn't get out of it myself. And I ended up here by accident. Ask the guard Thereon, he knows." Jenny tried to keep herself from squirming. She didn't like being helpless.

"Thereon. Our fool of a geologist." Jenny stared past the doctor, who was now was sticking a vaccine in her arm. A Silurian in uniform, complete with sinister, bony mask, had walked in. "We sent him to find our members displaced and find the cause of the earthquake and the imbecile kept claiming the artifact has something to do with it. The fool couldn't even find his own genemate brother."

"You keep talking about this artifact. I don't have a clue what it is, but you think I do," Jenny said.

"Ascaepelus, are you finished with the intruder?" The warrior asked.

"Just one more-" the doctor gave Jenny another jab in the arm. "Yes. Finished all precautions. She's a Time Lord, or at least a Gallifreyan." He unlocked the ankle and wrist holds. Jenny fell to the floor, then stood up, shakily. The period after a regeneration was always weird. Being poked, prodded, and vaccinated by several doctors, human and Silurian, had not helped her in the past forty-eight hours since being hit by a car north of Market Street.

"Come with me," the Silurian soldier demanded. Jenny had no choice but to follow him. Her new regeneration seemed to be meeker. Interesting. In the back of her mind, there was still the urge to fight.

Jenny was lead down a corridor, past pods and tubes holding sleeping Silurians.

"I was told that several Silurians were displaced during the quake," she said. "How many?"

"We are all accounted for except for five," the soldier said. "That useless geologist Thereon is currently undergoing punishment for his failure to locate those missing."

They stopped in front of double doors, which the soldier pushed open. He prodded Jenny forward with his heat Ray gun. As Jenny stepped in, she nearly fainted in surprise and joy. Sitting in the middle of the room was a blue box. Thousands of years of myths, of ghost stories and whispers of a hero, reports of a terrible enemy, and all around this figure, a simple legend of a blue box- a gateway to other worlds and times long passed and yet to come.

Jenny had never seen the blue box before, but in her travels she had heard of it many times. UNIT and Torchwood had pictures of it and its lone permanent resident, a madman. As Jenny approached the box, she could feel its energy. Images were drawn up from the recesses of her newly-regenerated mind.

A childish old man, white hair, cane, and Victorian suit. He reminded Jenny to go forward in all her beliefs in a kind, brave way.

A rumpled little hobo, sweet but sad and wearing a sloppy bowtie. His advice was to use the technique of keeping her eyes open and her mouth shut.

A tall and classy white-haired scientist with a love of cars and frilly shirts. He told her softly to remember that courage was not just a matter of not being frightened, but of being afraid and doing what you had to do anyway.

Another tall, curly-haired man, this one in an impossibly long scarf, holding a bag of jelly babies and having the most obnoxiously happy expression. His deep voice asked what the point of being grown up was if sometimes you couldn't be childish.

Then blonde and wearing beige, a stalk of celery inexplicably stuck in his lapel. He reminded her that for some people, small beautiful events were what life was all about.

Loud and brash, curly hair and even louder coat, saying that nothing could be eternal.

Next small and sly, a waistcoat knitted with question marks. His warning was that the tea was getting cold and they had work to do.

Soon long, curly hair and an Edwardian suit, soft eyes and voice, saying her dream may not come true forever, but it could for today.

Then short cropped hair and big ears, wearing a leather jacket and the pain of hundreds of years. Through his sorrow, he promised her that just this once, everybody would live.

Then, the man she knew- tall, messy hair, and a pinstripe suit, boyish yet broken, in a terrible rage, demanding that a society be built on the memory of a many who never would. That was the father she never knew, taken from her to suffer.

He was gone, all too soon. Jenny forced back tears as he was replaced with another young man, this one in a bowtie and tweed suit, a world-weary child still retaining some joy. His words to her were the reassurance that life was a pile of good things and bad things, and the good things didn't always soften the bad things, but the bad things didn't always spoil the good things either.

The image of this man, her father, the Doctor, faded, and Jenny was left in the stuffy cavern, staring at the TARDIS. The memories of Daddy hadn't come from UNIT's records. They'd cone from the part of her father that lived inside her. The TARDIS wanted her to remember.


	15. Chapter Fifteen- Rory, Disaster Magnet

While Jenny was being questioned by the Silurians and the Doctor and Grace were catching up on the past twelve years, Amy was sitting at an abandoned nurse's station, watching the noisy imagine on her laptop.

"How far does it go down?"

"Uh, I'm not really keeping track. I've probably gone about a thousand feet," Rory said. "I think it goes down about eight feet each time I go maybe a hundred feet."

Rory had gone back to where he had found the injured Silurian, equipped with the Doctor's dorky glasses that served as a high-tech webcam. Amy's computer picked up the feed, so she saw and heard everything Rory did. Rory had no idea how it worked, considering there was no WiFi underground. He had not ruled out magic.

"So that's a gradient of 8, or 8 percent," Amy replied. Pretty steep. Don't fall."

"Haha. Now, what am I looking for?"

"You know, normal signs of Silurian life. You've been down there before," Amy said.

"Don't remind me," Rory muttered. "Hey, I hear something."

"The computer's not picking anything but you up," Amy said.

"Um, Amy, I think I'm not the only one- hey! No! I just-" The image went wonky as Rory fell. Amy stared at the screen in horror as the sounds of a scuffle emanated from her headset. "Amy!" Came Rory's muffled scream. "Get the Doctor!" The feed went black.

-

"Why did you let me sleep?"

Before the Doctor could duck, Grace hit him with he clipboard.

"Ow! Grace!" He stared at her. "That wasn't very graceful," he said.

"Yeah, well, why didn't you wake me up?" Grace snarled. "I have work to do!"

They were standing outside Grace's office, early the next morning. The hospital was just waking up, with doctors and nurses coming in and checking on patients. It had been two days since Grace had called the Doctor,and the girl with two hearts was still missing. Grace's boss, Mr. Skinner, was chalking it up to Jane Smith being a mental patient, nothing else. And to be fair, he knew nothing of the truth. Skinner was okay, better than her last boss, who destroyed evidence of the Doctor in order to hide hospital failure. But Grace didn't like lying. And she knew not to trust any situation involving the name Smith.

The argument between Grace and the Doctor was cut short as Amy came running.

"Doctor! I lost Rory!"

"You lost him?"

"He fell, screamed, told me to get you. I think he was attacked!" Amy looked truly scared.

"Then we have to find him," the Doctor said. "Come along, Pond." He and Amy took off down the hall.

"I'm coming too!" Grace caught up with Amy and the Doctor. "You're going to need me, right?"

The Doctor smiled. "Of course!"

"Wait!" Amy piped up. "The Silurian! We can't leave him here."

"Then it's time he gets to go home," the Doctor replied.

-

The world slowly came into focus as Rory pried open his eyes and realized he was right side up, not lying on the ground. He started, finding he couldn't move. He was shackled, wrist and ankle, to a standing table. Not again... He started running over what had happened in the past hours. That night he, the Doctor, and Amy had decided that he would go back to where he'd found the injured Silurian, and use the RoryCam, the Doctor's webcam, to send a live feed back to Amy's computer, which was already sonicked. The Doctor was still trying to locate the TARDIS, and Grace was occupied with hospital work. Rory was, as usual, on his own.

Rory been following the tunnel he'd found, lighting the way with an industrial torch he'd gotten from a bemused EMT worker (for some reason the Doctor and Grace stayed away from EMT drivers). He'd just been describing the tunnel to Amy when he'd been attacked. He remembered screaming for Amy. The last thing he saw before everything went black was a sinister, black-eyed, silver reptilian face standing over him.

"Huh? Where am I?" Rory finally found his voice, but his diaphragm had a very unpleasant pressure on it. His stomach hurt. "Wait... Silurians!"

"Hold still, ape," commanded the doctor, Ascaepelus. "Huh. One heart."

"Of course I have one heart!" Rory sputtered. "Wait. What are you- ow! Oh. Right. I don't have anything. I'm a nurse. Can you not-"

"What are you doing underground?" Ascaepelus asked. He'd been given the job of decontaminating the two intruders the soldiers had caught, plus interrogating them, since head of security had been killed in the quake. He'd have preferred to just take care of the medical work. But they were running low on personnel. They couldn't wake up more, because they didn't have the means of supporting the population. Things weren't ready yet.

"I, uh- it was totally an accident," Rory attempted. Right now he really wished he had the Doctor with him. As much as he often times felt inferior to Amy's friend the all-powerful Time Lord, Rory still thought him a great friend and had to admit that he knew how to charm his way out of anything.

Rory didn't have that skill.

"Wait- you said I have one heart. You mean you've seen someone with two hearts?" Rory asked. He knew that there were other species with two hearts, like the inhabitants of Apalapucia.

"We found your companion, she's under questioning," the doctor said.

"My companion? I don't know anyone here! Look, I just want to get back to my wife." Rory really missed Amy and the Doctor now. They always new what to do. Suddenly it hit him. Two hearts! The reason they were in San Francisco in the first place was Grace had found a girl with two hearts. That must be her. Rory now had to do some quick thinking. "Look. I, uh, I'll talk. Where is she? Take me to her, please." It was a long shot.

"You'll meet with her soon enough," the doctor said. "For now, you're going into stasis. He walked away, and therefore didn't hear Rory mutter "Crap."


	16. Chapter Sixteen- The Search for Rory

"I really hope you know what you're doing," Grace muttered.

"Saving Rory!" Amy and the Doctor replied.

"But how?" Grace asked, shining the torch at the Doctor. "And what is that noise?"

"Noise?" Amy asked.

"I hear it too," the Doctor said. "Come along Pond, Holloway."

After losing contact with Rory, Amy and the Doctor immediately decided to go back to the site and look for him. Grace had come too. In front of them was the Silurian, who had sufficiently recovered from blunt force trauma to introduce himself as Kuprion, and agreed to lead them through the tunnels, thanks to Amy's tact and diplomatic skill.

Kuprion was still recovering.

The Doctor had locked onto a signal with his screwdriver.

"What is it?" Amy asked.

"The TARDIS!" the Doctor exclaimed. "That's what Grace and I hear. She's looking for us. Geronimo!"

Amy followed the Doctor, keeping an eye on the Silurian. After the incident in Wales, she didn't trust them. Part of her felt sorry, though. This one was just a kid, had been injured, and possibly wasn't as self-serving as Alaya, who had brought about her own death, just to start a war between the humans and Silurians. But still she didn't like putting her life and the lives of her friends in the claws of their old rivals. And they still had Rory.

"So, Kuprion, how long have you been awake?" the Doctor asked.

"Woke up with the quake. My gene brother told me I shouldn't go look out, but I did, and I was hit in the aftershock." He looked more than a little guilty. "He told me to get back in stasis, especially since the epicenter was right under us. I- I should have listened to him."

"You know quite a lot about earthquakes," Grace said. She was still partially wrapping her head around talking to a lizard.

"My gene brother's a geologist. We come from a line of scientists," Kuprion replied, climbing over a rock. The Doctor helped Grace over, Amy followed, glaring at him for trying to be nice. "What about you three? You're pretty smart apes."

"I'm a doctor," Grace said, not liking being called an ape.

"I'm a writer," Amy said.

"And you're not going to tell me what you are," Kuprion said, looking askance at the Doctor. "I can tell."

"Okay, Kuprion, where are you taking us?" the Doctor said.

"Medical room. You're mate should be there, lady," he replied, glancing at Amy.

Amy caught a glint of glass out of the corner of her eye. "Doctor! Doctor, look at this!" She reached down and picked up the crushed remains of the RoryCam. She handed them to the Doctor. "Please. Tell me Rory will be alright."

The Doctor said nothing.

"Doctor! Please! Rory' s okay, right?"

"Of course," the Doctor replied softly. "Ponds. Always alright."

-

Jenny had listened to the TARDIS long enough. She had to do something now. The military instincts of never having an enemy behind you kicked in, and in a second, the soldier was disarmed and on the ground, twisted around Jenny's arm. She brought the heat Ray gun down, knocking him out. She dragged the unconscious soldier away and ran back to the TARDIS.

-

Rory had not gotten so far. He was in stasis, his life slowed down. At least he wasn't dead.

-

Horrified, Jenny dug through her pockets. "Oh crap!" she hissed. "Where- no- I can't have- please, no!" She shook out the contents of her wallet and found nothing but two American twenties and a British fiver, a receipt from her last lunch, and the scrap of psychic paper.

Before sending her on this mission to dispatch a vespiform, Captain Jack Harkness had given her a key, telling her to keep it safe, and saying that it would prove helpful if one say she came across the TARDIS. Jenny hadn't known it at the the time, but Jack had given her his TARDIS key, the one the Doctor had made for him when fighting the Master in the past that never happened.

And now she had lost it.

Not thinking, Jenny ran down the way she had come, hoping to see a glint of metal waiting for her amongst the paving stones and dirt. She was half blinded by tears. No, she was a soldier. She couldn't cry. But she had lost the one thing that could connect her to her father. The tears stung.

-

"The signal's getting stronger!" the Doctor called. "We've found the TARDIS! Then we'll be able to find Rory. He's still connected to the RoryCam, unless he lost the microphone thingy. Which he probably did. But there's still the chance we'll find him!"

"He's probably held on stasis," Kuprion said helpfully.

"Where do they hold someone in stasis?" Amy asked.

"Anywhere in the colony," Kuprion replied. "The whole colony is in stasis chambers."

"How large is the colony?" Grace asked.

"Under the whole human city and under the Bay," Kuprion replied.

"In other words he could be anywhere in the city of San Francisco," Grace said.

"We're never going to find Rory," Amy mumbled.

"Sorry about your mate," Kuprion said.

"Amelia," the Doctor said, holding up his screwdriver. "We're near what sure sounds like the TARDIS. Come on!"

"What's the TARDIS?" Kuprion asked.

"It's my machine," the Doctor said. "It's a way of traveling."

"More than that," Grace put in.

"Bigger on the inside!" Amy added.

"How can something be bigger on the inside?" Kuprion asked.

"You'll see," the Doctor replied.

As the Doctor followed the signal with the green light from the sonic screwdriver...

...Jenny was walking down the same corridor, head down and looking for her key.


	17. Chapter Seventeen- The Doctor's Daughter

"You notice something odd, Doctor?" Amy asked. "There' re no plants." The construction of the Silurian colony was just like an aboveground building, now they had passed the quake damage. Amy remembered the same kind of architecture from the colony in Wales, but there was a major difference between this and Wales- no plants.

"We can't grow anything here," Kuprion said. "Not since the earthquake and the burning."

"When would that have been?" Grace asked.

"Over a hundred years in your understanding," Kuprion replied, glancing back at his simian companions. The man and the older woman he didn't mind too much, except for the woman's constant questions. The young woman, however, was mean and bossy.

"The Great Earthquake of 1906, then?" Grace said. "That was about an eight pointer and caused a huge fire."

"So that's what you humans call it. It destroyed so much of our colony."

"It nearly destroyed our city!" Grace shot back.

"We were hear first," Kuprion replied. "And my brother was nearly punished for his negligence. Only thing that kept him from execution was the head of the science board convinced the council that it couldn't be contained like smaller quakes."

Meanwhile the buzzing from the sonic screwdriver had rose in pitch and was now screaming.

"Come on, Amy! I've found the TARDIS! It'll lead us to Rory!" The Doctor took off running and Amy followed.

Grace had fallen behind, far too interested in the architecture and scientific understanding of the colony. She had gone back to following the Doctor and Amy when a body slammed into her. Kuprion turned around in time to see Jenny backing away from him and Grace. No one had expected to see another human in the corridors. Jenny turned to run, but Kuprion ran after her, knocking her to the floor.

"Another ape!" Kuprion snarled. "What are you doing here?"

"Lemme go you scaly-" the rest was lost in the scuffle. Jenny regained her feet and had her arm around Kuprion's scaly neck in a second. She may have a new personality and body, but her genetic coding was still the same- programmed to be a soldier.

"Would you mind not beating up our guide?" Grace asked. "And who are you?"

Jenny looked down at the Silurian, then let him down. She pulled out her wallet and showed Grace her psychic paper. "Jennifer Noble, seismology unit, Cal Tech. I'm here investigating the damage and-"

"I don't think so, kid," Grace said, looking at the paper. "This is psychic paper, right? It says your name is Jenny, and you're looking for your dad."

Jenny stared at Grace. It all made sense now. The woman was the one she'd seen before she regenerated, the doctor at the hospital. What was her name? Holloway. That was it. And how could she see the through the psychic paper?

"Come with me. You need to meet the Doctor."

"The Doctor?" Jenny asked.

Amy came running back. "Grace! What happened? Where's Kuprio- oh. We did it! We found the temporary stasis chamber. We need someone with a keycode, it's a deadlock seal." Amy stopped and stared at Jenny.

"Jennifer Noble. Don't ask," Grace said. "Because I don't know," she added under her breath.

"I'll give you the keycode if you stop this intruder from killing me," Kuprion said.

"Fair enough. You heard him, Noble," Grace said, taking charge.

Then the Doctor came running.

"Amelia! Did you bolt the last door?"

"Yes! I did! Why-"

There was an unearthly scream.

"Oh good, you idiots went and woke him up," Kuprion said.

"Wait- If Silurians survived from the past, then other creatures could have, if they saved them," Grace said.

"Yeah, and this one isn't too happy!" Amy said.

"Come on, follow me!" Jenny ordered. She grabbed her father's hand. "Run!" and they ran back down the corridor to the TARDIS. Grace, Amy, and Kuprion followed, chased by heavy running footfalls. Jenny pushed open the doors and she and her father burst in, then made way for the other three. Kuprion slammed the doors shut and locked them. Something slammed against the door, rattling it and sending Kuprion back in a leap of fear. There was a dissatisfied hiss from the other side, then wings flapping away.

"Thanks," Amy said, getting a look at the newcomer. The girl was medium-sized, wearing a patchy shirt; and, Amy noted with approval, a ginger.

"No problem," Jenny said. Her stomach w as beginning to hurt and she had a pounding in her head.

"The TARDIS!" The Doctor shouted, running to the blue box. Grace and Amy joined him, but Jenny hung back. Kuprion stared quizzically at the artifact.

"So that's what they were looking for," the Silurian said.

"They were looking for it?" Jenny asked, surprised.

"Thank you for saving us," the Doctor said, walking back to Jenny while Amy unlocked the door.

"No problem," Jenny replied. "Jennifer Noble."

"Nice to meet you, Jennifer. I'm the Doctor, and my friends are Grace Holloway and Amy Pond. What are you doing here?"

"I've heard a lot about you," Jenny said. "The good man that went to war."

The Doctor stared at her, his face unreadable.

"So this is a TARDIS? Blimey, I've only heard about these."

"It's a Type-40," the Doctor replied. "And MY TARDIS."

"Why'd the Silurians steal it?" Amy asked.

"Good question," Jenny replied. Her heart sank lower every second. She recognized her father but he didn't know her.

"They probably thought it was connected to the earthquake," Kuprion said. "Humans are always meddling in the Earth.

Jenny was feeling feverish now. "Or maybe they didn't move it themselves. Aren't TARDISes alive?"

"You know a lot about aliens," Grace said. She turned to the Doctor. "She has psychic paper."

"Really?" The Doctor said, intrigued.

"I don't, it's just-" Jenny gave up. "Okay. I work for UNIT."

"Who's your commanding officer?" The Doctor asked.

"I report directly to Kate Stewart."

"Kate! How is she?"

"Same as ever," Jenny replied. "Grateful for your turning up just then with the cubes."

Amy had come back. "You alright?" Jenny was bending over, hands braced on her knees like a runner out of breath.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"They catch you?" Amy asked. Jenny looked at her.

"We've met the Silurians before, in Wales."

"Disinfected me and everything-" Jenny collapsed on her knees. "Oww!"

Grace and the Doctor knelt down beside her. "It'll be alright, sweetie," the Doctor said, strangely reminded of how comforting River could be on occasion when she wasn't trying to kill him. Jenny was folded up, holding herself and squeezing her eyes shut. The halogen light hadn't been so bright before, had it? Her throat was constricting and her whole body ached.

Grace reached out and took her wrist and took her pulse.

"Oh my God! Doctor, feel this!" She passed Jenny's hand to the Doctor. "She's-"

"-Got two pulses," the Doctor finished. "Time Lady," they said in unison.

"But that means-"

"Jennifer, what did they do to you?" The Doctor said, horrified.

"They stuck me and vaccinated me and scanned me," Jenny mumbled.

"They've introduced medicine to her that's toxic!" Grace said. "Fine for one heart but she's got a different circulatory system!"

"Wait! Wait! I'm not just a Time Lord," Jenny gasped. "I wasn't born. I was genetically engineered back- back on Messaline like the other soldiers in the war with the Hath! That's my name, Jenny. It means genetic anomaly."

"Jenny..." the Doctor repeated. Painful memories resurfaced. Of a war, a forced tissue sample, and an unwanted child. By the time he came to accept it, she was gone.

"Don't you get it?" Jenny gasped. "I wanted to find you again."

The Doctor stared at her, still holding her shaking, clammy hand. The next few words were incredibly painful but strangely cathartic at the same time. "Are you my daughter?"

Jenny smiled that radiant smile the Doctor had missed. "Hello, Dad."


	18. Chapter Eighteen- A Lot to Explain

"Jenny!"

Jenny threw her arms around her father's neck. "Sorry for all this," she said. "I never thought-"

"I never thought I'd see you again!" the Doctor cried, hugging her. She stood up in his arms and didn't want to let go.

"I'm okay, Dad! I just regenerated! I've been traveling!" Jenny was sweating but very happy. "I've seen so much!"

"So have I!" tThe Doctor said. "I want to hear about everything!"

"Sontarans!" Jenny said.

"Ood!"

"Daleks!"

"Davros!" the Doctor said.

"Cybermen!"

"Weird cubes!"

"Missing planets!"

"Sexy fish vampires!"

"Jim the Fish!"

"The Silence!"

"Weeping Angels!"

"The Master!"

"Weevils!"

"Silurians!"

"Adipose!"

That beat whatever the Doctor was going to counter with, so instead he asked, "How did you survive the War?"

"I was killed within fifteen hours of being born! Same as being injured before fifteen hours of regeneration! I was able to come back! I survived, Daddy!" They hugged again, squealing and laughing.

"Do you really work for UNIT?"

"Yes! I work under Kate Stewart! She doesn't know who I am. I've also done jobs for Torchwood. I was on a job for them, actually. Vespiform."

"Amy, did you hear that? My little girl's working for UNIT now!" The Doctor sounded every bit the proud father.

"What's going on?" Amy asked. "This girl is..."

"Sorry, I um, kind of lied. My name's Jenny, and you must be my dad's companions."

"You're the Doctor's daughter? Wait- you're the girl that was brought into the hospital a couple days ago! You're the one who ran away!" Grace's head was spinning.

"Yeah. Sorry 'bout that. I kind of panicked."

"Hold on-" Amy fixed the Doctor with the most disturbed expression Jenny had ever seen on a human. "This girl is your daughter? You never said you had kids!"

The Doctor opened his mouth to explain, but was cut off.

"Who's her mother? Is she River's daughter?"

"She was born before I even knew River!" the Doctor countered.

"I don't have a mother," Jenny said quietly. "I'm a soldier, born on Messaline during the war with the Hath. They cloned soldiers. They took a sample of the Doctor and made me." She looked over at her father. "Why does she think I'm River's daughter? Does she mean Dr Song, the murderer?"

"This is all very confusing," Kuprion said. "Apes."

"I'm a Time Lord," Jenny said. "And you better explain how the Silurians came to steal my father's TARDIS."

"Wait- let me get this straight-" Grace said. "Jenny, Jennifer Noble, the girl that got hit by a car, is your daughter? She regenerated since you saw her, and since I saw her in the hospital. And River Song is that woman you mentioned, who you keep meeting out of order."

The Doctor nodded.

"How is River related to you?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said.

"He's her husband," Amy snapped. "And on a related note, I want to find Rory!"

"Sorry, I'm not going to be much help," Jenny mumbled, leaning against the TARDIS. "I feel really sick..."

"How is it you've survived so long?" The Doctor asked. "The treatment would have killed a Time Lord by now." He pulled out his screwdriver and scanned her. "Must be in your genes. Something that is keeping you alive."

"She's a soldier?" Grace asked. "Then, if you were going to engineer the perfect soldier, how would you do it?"

"Make them be able to withstand pain!" Amy said. "I bet that's what's keeping her alive- how much pain she can withstand."

Suddenly there was an ear-piercing squelch.

"Attention- intruders located. Security to-"

"We have to work fast," Amy said. "I locked on to Rory, we're headed in the eight direction. Can you unlock the door, Kuprion?"

"I believe so," the Silurian replied.

"Amelia, you and Grace come with me," the Doctor said. "Jenny, you stay with the TARDIS- she'll keep you safe."

"I don't want to be safe!" Jenny yelled, following her father. "I want to help you find the Rory!"

"Listen to me, young lady!" the Doctor began.

"Oh, give it up. Maybe she can help," Amy said.

"We're going to need some form of antidote for her," Grace said.

Jenny collapsed on the floor, holding herself again. "Oh, God... one heart. How do you humans live with just one heart?"

"Amazingly enough, we've done fine," Grace said, walking up to the Doctor. "Doctor, you and Amy find Rory. If you can, look for anything that might reverse the effects of the treatment, like samples of bacteria." She took his hand. "I'm not leaving Jenny."

"Puccini?" the Doctor whispered.

"I swear on Madame Butterfly." Grace let go of his hand and walked back to the rapidly deteriorating Jenny.

"Thank you, Grace," the Doctor said, "thank you for taking care of my daughter."


	19. Chapter Nineteen- Stasis

The Doctor and Amy followed the TARDIS's homing signal, which was locked on Rory. Kuprion lead the way, thoroughly confused with the recent turn of events with the girl. As was Amy.

"Oo-kay, Doctor, explain about Jenny."

"What is there to say?" The Doctor asked. "Jenny is a clone. Soldiers forcibly extrapolated a tissue sample and cloned me. She was programmed to be a soldier and was killed in the war. I- I didn't want to accept her as my daughter, although my companion at the time, Donna Noble, tried to convince me to."

"And in the end you did," Amy observed.

"I did it too late," the Doctor admitted. "I didn't want to love her because, well, I'd lose her. And I thought I did."

"So she's a Time Lord," Amy said.

"Yes. Two hearts, binary respiratory system. Explains the blood sample Grace had."

"Didn't you know she'd regenerate?" Amy asked. She'd met the Doctor soon after regeneration and eventually seen her quasi-Time Lord daughter Mels regenerate into River Song.

"I was told she wouldn't."

"And so you abandoned your child," Kuprion said. The Doctor and Amy both started. They had forgotten their Silurian guide.

"I've made a lot of mistakes," the Doctor said.

"Like how you treat River," Amy countered.

"Yes, River," the Doctor said bitterly.

"So, Kuprion," Amy said, turning to their guide. "That thing chasing us- what was it?"

"I think I know," the Doctor replied.

"Here we are," Kuprion announced. They had stopped in front of a door with a lock. Kuprion punched several keys and the door swung open. He turned to the Doctor and Amy. "From here I can't promise you'll be safe. Anyone awake can see you."

"We have a way around that," Amy said, pulling her key out of her pocket. She slipped it over her head.

"What?" Kuprion was taken aback. "What did she do?"

"Perception filter," the Doctor said. He slipped the cord with his key around his neck. "Lead on, MacDuff."

"You are two very strange apes," Kuprion mumbled.

-

Jenny slipped back into unconsciousness, leaving Grace with a possibly dying patient, no Doctor, and no idea what to do. Grace stared at the TARDIS, finding it hard to comprehend- the Doctor was back. She opened the door and was amazed. The interior had completely changed- it was no longer an Edwardian library, but instead what you'd expect from a space ship. Pink, green, and sterling silver gleamed in the structure and a faint humming told Grace the TARDIS was online.

"Hello, old girl," Grace said. "Remember me?" She supported the comatose Jenny into the control room. "I really need your help," Grace begged. I'm talking to a machine... Grace thought. But hadn't the Doctor said something about the TARDIS being alive?

"This is the Doctor's daughter!" Grace cried, laying Jenny on the floor. "Come on! Help me here! Oh God..." the TARDIS didn't respond. "Not again... I lost your dad. I don't want to lose you, Jenny." Horrible flashbacks from the night she had killed the Doctor came back. And now Jenny was going to die if Grace couldn't stop the toxins. Crap. What made it worse was that Grace could feel how much the Doctor really loved his daughter, and she herself was beginning to get attached to Jenny.

Grace put her head in her hands and cried.

-

"Okay, humans and whatever else you are," Kuprion said. "This stasis hold should hold your mate." He fiddled with some controls and light flooded the hall. The walls were lined with stasis chambers. Amy guessed there had to be well over five hundred.

"How will we find Rory?" She asked.

"We start looking," the Doctor said. "Can't be too hard to find Rory, he's the only human."

Bad flashbacks from Wales running through their minds, the Doctor and Amy wandered through the rows of chambers.

After what seemed hours, they were nearing the end, and Amy worried that they wouldn't find her husband.

"What if they killed him again?" Amy asked.

"Amelia... here he is!" The Doctor ran to one of the last pods. Inside was Rory.

"Rory!" Amy rushed to the door of the chamber. The Doctor examined the readouts, set it to wake Rory up, and then opened the door. A very weak and confused Rory stumbled out.

"What? Where am I?"

"Stasis hall in a Silurian colony under San Francisco," the Doctor explained.

"Doctor? A- Amy?"

"You better believe it, idiot," Amy replied, hugging him.

Rory hugged her back. "What's going on?" He asked.

"A lot. Come on, we need to get back to Grace, Jenny, and the TARDIS," the Doctor said.

Little did the reunited team know, but somewhere else a complete squadron of Silurian warriors were just waking up.

-

The TARDIS heard Grace and wisely refused to let her give up.

"Wait... there has to be some medical kit in the main control room," Grace said to herself. "Jenny, you stay there." Jenny was still out, so it didn't make any difference. Grace ran around the console, throwing open compartment doors and looking for any form of first aid. She found a bottle of something resembling a banana smoothie. In disgust, Grace tossed it over her shoulder.

It landed next to Jenny's prone form and burst open.

Grace didn't notice, at first, the gold light shimmering behind her and casting an unearthly glow about the TARDIS. Then she saw it- energy from the TARDIS itself. Something in her responded- she'd been brought back by that same energy. Back from the dead and into the Doctor's arms.

The light covered Jenny, and soon she was stirring.

"Ouch... ow... How long was I asleep?" Jenny sat up, blinking.

"You passed out maybe an hour ago..." Grace heard herself say. "What just happened?"

"I bet it was this," Jenny said, picking up the smoothie bottle. "Just the nutrients I needed. Bananas. I like bananas. Bananas are good." She jumped up. "Grace, right?" She asked.

"Yes, Dr. Grace Holloway-"

"You remind me of my mum for some reason. Oh my God. If you and I are here and I was asleep but I shouldn't have been and here we are in the TARDIS... where's Daddy?"

"He went with Amy to find-"

"That's it!" Jenny cried. "He went with the other ginger girl to find a Rory. Whatever a Rory is. And I'm a ginger too. Why do I have to be ginger? My mum was ginger. Thanks for the smoothie! I feel a lot better," Jenny rambled, hugging Grace. Grace feebly hugged her back, her mind spinning from just watching the energetic young Time Lord. Jenny was just like her father.

"Well, come on!" Jenny shouted, turning around at the door of the TARDIS. "Let's go find Dad and make sure he doesn't get himself into any trouble! Allons-y!"

Grace had no choice but to follow Jenny. Babysitting Time Lords seemed to be part of her job description now.


	20. Chapter 20- Deus Ex Machina

"Something isn't right about this," Jenny said, stopping so abruptly Grace nearly ploughed into her.

"Everything is wrong," Grace mumbled.

"Did Dad ever explain the Matrix to you?"

"The what?"

"It's complicated. See, the consciousness of all Time Lords are hooked up into something called the Matrix. Only it's pretty empty these days with two left, my Dad and I. I read about it in some old records in the archives at Metebelis III. TARDISes are connected to their Time Lords. I think Dad's TARDIS likes you, though." Jenny prattled, fiddling with the old screwdriver she'd grabbed from the control room.

"So what's wrong?" Grace asked.

"Well, how long have we been walking?" Jenny asked.

"Maybe fifteen minutes. You were just whining about how the shoes you're wearing don't fit," Grace said.

"I wasn't whinging!" Jenny exclaimed. "I haven't said anything about the shoes."

"And I said you stole your clothes from the hospital, right?" Grace asked.

"Come on, how could you know that?"

"Do you know how I met your father?"

"No," Jenny said. "I meant to ask about that. You and Dad seemed pretty close."

"Well... it's kind of a long story," Grace said.

"We've got time."

"Well, I'm a cardiologist. I perform heart surgery. Your father got shot back in 1999 and was brought to me because he had an irregular heartbeat and the x-rays showed two hearts. I opted for exploratory surgery, and he died on the table. Then he regenerated. He didn't know who he was or what was going on, but he followed me and dragged me into this scheme to save the world from the Master."

"Dad has a way of doing that," Jenny said with a grin.

"So long story short, he had stolen a frock coat from a locker. One of the guys in the morgue was going to a costume party. Your dad stole his Wild Bill Hickcock costume- frock coat, that sort of thing- and ran off. Followed me home, actually."

"Man, these shoes don't fit well at all!" Jenny mumbled.

"You got your clothes from a locker at the hospital, right?" Grace asked.

"Yeah, I guess so. My old clothes didn't fit." Jenny paused. "What did I just say?"

"You said your old clothes didn't fit any more," Grace replied. "Go on, we're looking for your father and Amy."

"No- we've already had this conversation in the future!" Jenny yelled. "Time's gone funny. I gotta find Dad!"

Then everything went dark.

i"Well, Doctor, so we meet again."/I

Amy and Rory looked around for the voice that had just spoken.

"Show yourself!" The Doctor said. "Come on... who's talking?"

i"You know me well, Doctor. /I

"Ah, Doctor," Amy began."He's in my head. His voice."

"It'll be alright, Amelia," the Doctor said, not at all reassuringly. He only called her Amelia when he was worrying about her.

I"Surely you haven't forgotten the affair with Turlough, Doctor,"/I said the infuriatingly calm voice.

"Okay, I know who you are, and I really didn't want to have to deal with someone like you when I'm trying to save the city."

A man materialized in front of the Doctor and the Ponds. He was tall, skeletal, and dressed all in black.

"I see you've gotten rid of that vulture hat," the Doctor observed. "All the same, rubbish hat. Good it's gone."

"My image can change," the man said. "My corporeal form is not bound to my existence."

"Oh yes, about that- I'm on something of a tight schedule, so could you exist somewhere else?" The Doctor asked.

"The earthquake and the Silurians, no?"

"Yes, exactly that, actually."

"So far it's been easy. For you and your daughter. However, her childhood is over, and your crimes are at an end."

"You couldn't even kill me when you had Turlough under your control!" The Doctor said. "Leave my daughter out of this! If you want to continue from where we left off, you'll deal with me!"

"The fools could not keep you locked up, even in the Pandorica," the man in black snarled. "And Turlough was an idiot. It is my job to finish the criminal known as the Doctor. But then I was informed of a girl who is just as dangerous."

"So you're with the Shadow Proclamation now?" The Doctor asked. "A Guardian?"

"Doctor, what's going on?" Amy demanded.

"I think he wants to kill us," Rory said. "Things usually do."

"This, Ponds, is the Black Guardian," the Doctor explained. "An old adversary of mine." He turned to the Guardian."I am not going to give my daughter over to the Shadow Proclamation or to chaos."

"Then accept your fate, Time Lord," the Guardian hissed.

Amy's vision went blurry. Then everything fell.


End file.
